Sea Jade

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  This weaving of fantasy was so pleasant that I smiled to myself, far more hopeful as I turned in the direction of the lighthouse. Perhaps the captain was wiser than I knew and had found a solution that was the right one for me after all. I began to feel cheerful and adventurous, and since I had no desire to return immediately to the house, I approached the lighthouse tower.

  This unused structure was not nearly so tall as the newer lighthouse across the harbor, though in its day the headland itself must have given it sufficient height. A flagged walk led across the brown grass of a lawn to a door set in the stone tower. Just behind the tower, and forming its base, was a small two-storied dwelling that jutted its wings to either side of the tower proper. Probably no one lived there now, though a flag hung from a pole over the front door. It was a flag I knew well from my father’s tales—the yellow house flag of Bascomb & Company. Yellow to pay honor to China—unlike the more common blue and white flags of so many shipping concerns. The company’s relations with the hong merchants of Canton had always been excellent. My father had exchanged gifts with old Houqua himself and had often spoken admiringly of the famous Chinese merchant who had headed the hongs in dealing with the west.

  Lighthouses were a part of the story of ships and the sea, but I had never before set foot in one. I went quickly up the walk and mounted the low steps. The doorknob turned easily to my hand and I found that I could step inside. The moment I entered the entryway, with its iron rungs on my right, mounting circularly to the tower above, a fierce barking sounded close at hand. Alarmed, I half expected the dog to come leaping upon me, and I would have fled, had I not heard a man’s voice chide the animal, so that it fell silent. I realized that the sounds came from beyond a closed door that led into one of the wings.

  My heart began to thump a little at the realization that Brock McLean was only a door away. My daydreaming mood was still upon me and now I had no desire to escape. Undoubtedly he would control the dog, and it might be as well if there was an accidental meeting with this man, away from the house and the baleful influence of his mother.

  I left the entryway that led to the tower and stepped into a spacious lower room, well lighted by two whale oil lamps that hung by pulleys from the ceiling. On one side its windows looked toward the captain’s house, on the other toward the sea. This room appeared to open into two smaller rooms on either side, occupying the jutting wings, but these doors stood closed. The central portion into which I had stepped had been turned into something of a Bascomb & Company museum. On my right was a nearly life-sized boy, carved in wood and wearing the outfit of a sailor. He held the great brass housing of a ship’s compass in his arms, and his blue eyes seemed to follow me as I went past. Suspended from crossbeams, or standing on pedestals, were several figureheads, some cracked and weather-beaten, having sailed the seven seas, some as brightly and freshly painted as though they had never seen salt water. A likely possibility, I knew, since there were captains who had used their prize figureheads only when in port and stowed them safely in the hold out of harm’s way when the ship was at sea.

  Around the walls were hung framed paintings and photographs. Of these there was one that drew my interest at once. It was a delicately painted water color of a clipper ship, her sails puffed with wind as she sailed over neatly corrugated green waves, their crests etched in white. She was a black ship with a jade-green band painted all the way around her hull, and from the top of her mainmast flew the yellow Bascomb & Company flag. In the background were pictured blue-green hills that were stylistically Chinese. I bent to read the writing penciled on the mat and found the inscription: Sea Jade, Whampoa Harbor, and the name of a Chinese artist.

  I stood entranced, studying every detail of the painting. This was the beautiful and dangerous ship that had broken all speed records in her day, and perhaps my father’s heart as well. I knew that something had happened on that trip to make him leave his calling in spite of his never-ending devotion to the sea. I had been no more than two years old at the time and I knew nothing of what had happened. Later when I was older, a hush would fall when the name of the Sea Jade was mentioned, and sometimes my aunt would weep if I questioned her too closely, wanting to know more.

  So rapt was I in study of the Chinese painting that I heard nothing until the nearby growling of a dog sent me whirling about in fright. The door across the room had opened. A man and a great black dog stood side by side, watching me. The dog was so huge that the man’s hand lay upon its collar without his stooping.

  Once I was sure the hostile animal was under his master’s control, my attention was all for the man. He was out of oilskins now and I saw that he was tall and strongly built. Laurel had spoken of her father as a black Scotsman, and her description was apt. His hair was thick and dark and rather curly. Thick black brows arched above eyes that were nearly as dark, as he observed me coldly.

  “Well? What do you think of her?” he asked.

  It took me a moment to realize that he meant the handsome ship in the picture on the wall behind me. I felt flushed and confused and completely at a loss. This was not at all the manner in which I had imagined our meeting. It was I who should have come upon him unaware, with my smile in place and my courage high. Now I faltered as I tried to reply.

  “I—I’m sure the Sea Jade must have been the most beautiful ship that ever sailed an ocean.” My words were meant cravenly to placate, for Andrew McLean, this man’s father, had designed and built the famous ship, as Laurel had reminded me.

  “She was indeed,” his son said curtly. “She was a clipper ship of great splendor and cruelty. She killed many a man in her day. My father among them.”

  I swallowed hard. Apparently my appeasing effort had gone astray. The dog growled low in its throat and I threw it a nervous glance which its master observed.

  “You’re right to be wary,” he said. “Lucifer is not an amenable animal. But he is my friend and perhaps more to be trusted than most humans.” With one large hand he gestured toward a glass case not far from me and I caught the glint of fine jade in a ring on his finger. “There’s a model of Sea Jade that Captain Obadiah whittled out of white oak on one of her voyages. He did her justice, I think. Or very nearly.”

  I was glad to step to the case and pretend absorption in the graceful model the glass protected. I had the eye and the education, thanks to my father, to admire the clean lines, the grace of the prow, the unencumbered sweep of her decks, but it was the man who held my attention more than did the ship, though I could not meet his eyes.

  “There were some who said my father built her too sharp so that she wasn’t safe on the seas, but she proved her critics wrong,” he went on. “She stayed afloat and lost herself in no storm.”

  “What became of her?” I asked.

  His expression darkened. “The captain sold her years ago when she no longer made money for him. Perhaps she wound up as a slaver, running Chinamen to Peru to work at collecting guano.”

  To be involved in so tragic a trade seemed dreadful for all that gallant beauty.

  Brock McLean spoke again, his tone suddenly low so that there was almost a growl in it like the dog’s.

  “You’ve seen the captain by now, I suppose?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen him.”

  “Then you know of this wild plan of his?”

  The scorn in Brock McLean’s voice cut through any last wisps of my daydreaming. I managed to draw my gaze from the ship and look at him from beneath lowered lashes.

  “Yes,” I said. “He has told me what he wants of me.”

  “And you’ve given him the only possible answer, of course?”

  It was clear what answer he expected me to give. I could only shake my head feebly, feeling the wind-tangled curls tremble against my neck.

  “I said I would answer him tomorrow. He was growing excited and he seemed very ill. I didn’t want to disturb him further just then.” To my own ears I seemed to be making feeble excuses.

  “So you
postponed your decision?”

  The man spoke to the dog and commanded him to sit. Then he took his hand from the animal’s collar and came toward me across the room. I did not know which I feared most at that moment—the man or his dog.

  “I can understand,” he said more quietly, “how tempting this offer of Captain Obadiah’s must seem to you. It’s quite evident that you would have everything to gain and little to lose.”

  The words were bracing in their import. They touched a chord of indignation in me and I summoned a few shreds of my vanished courage.

  “Of course!” I told him. “I would have everything to gain—except love.”

  In my mind this argument had seemed the ruling one. But the sound of my words must have appeared unutterably naive, for Brock McLean smiled grimly.

  “You’re right about that. I hope the fact will weigh sufficiently with you so that your answer—upon proper consideration—will be a firm ‘no.’”

  “It will be ‘no,’” I assured him, hating his arrogance, his cynical doubt of me, detesting him more than I’d ever had cause to detest anyone in my entire young life. “I hope,” I added, “that the disappointment won’t upset the captain too much.”

  “He’s a tough old rascal,” Brock McLean said. “And he’s weathered worse than this. If you mean what you say, then the matter is settled.”

  “Isn’t it already settled if you’ve rejected the plan yourself?” I asked him more boldly.

  For an instant his dark look wavered from my face toward the view of lighted Bascomb windows. To my surprise I sensed a hesitation in him, something that suggested uncertainty. This alarmed me even more than his scorn. If a man like Brock McLean could be swayed by the captain or perhaps bought by him, my own resolution might not hold strong enough to save me.

  I found myself echoing his own words in an effort to taunt. “It’s possible that you would stand to gain even more than I by doing as the captain wishes. I can understand how tempting the offer might seem to you.”

  My derision went home and I saw anger flash in his eyes. He gave me no answer, but turned on his heel and went back into the room from which he had come, calling the dog to follow. I did not watch him go, and thus missed a certain physical fact about Brock McLean that I did not become acquainted with until later. A fact that had, above all else, influenced his life.

  I waited until I heard the door close behind those two kindred spirits and then I picked up my skirts and fled from that place. I ran down the flagged walk with the wind behind me and scurried like a child toward the one haven I knew—the tight little room that would shield me from the assaults Bascomb’s Point was making upon my temper and my emotions. I had never been so deeply angered before, or so shaken. Nor could I remember having wanted so much to hurt anyone as I had wanted to hurt Brock McLean. Tears were stinging my eyelids by the time I hurried upstairs and opened the door of my room.

  The child, Laurel, sat cross-legged on the bed waiting for me, and she missed nothing of my distraught state of mind.

  THREE

  Once more I was forced to brace myself. I could not face this child with tears in my eyes. Now the anger roused by her father was ready to vent itself upon her.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “I don’t believe I invited you into my room.”

  She sensed the turmoil in me and used it at once to strengthen her own position. “My room is next door.” She waved a casual hand at an open door between our rooms. “I came to see what you did with my stones. I wouldn’t want you to throw them away. Why are you angry? Why are you nearly crying?”

  I stood before the dresser mirror and busied my hands, combing out tangles the wind had set in my hair.

  “The stones were easy to remove,” I told her. “The sand was not. Why should you want to do such an unkind thing?”

  “To drive you away, of course. You’ve seen my father, haven’t you? That’s why you’re upset. That’s why you’re almost crying.”

  In the glass I could see her, peering at me through lank wisps of hair with eyes that were like her father’s.

  “I’ve seen him,” I said.

  At once she became agitated. She slid long thin legs from beneath her petticoats and I saw that her striped stockings were twisted and wrinkled, and one of them was torn. Who cared for this child? I wondered.

  “You’re not going to stay here, are you?” she demanded, coming close to stare upward into my face with her grandmother’s unblinking look. “You’re going to tell Captain Obadiah you won’t do as he wishes, aren’t you?”

  “I am indeed!” I said and was once more startled by the unfamiliar sharpness in my voice. “There’s nothing in the world that would make me stay in a place like this and I would certainly never marry your father.”

  Laurel tossed back the black strands of hair with a gesture that was suddenly triumphant. “That’s fine. The sooner you leave, the happier we’ll all be. We don’t want the daughter of a murderer here.”

  I was too shaken to behave sensibly. I pounced upon the child and shook her hard, demanding what she meant. She turned her head with the swiftness of a small animal and sank her teeth into my hand. I snatched it from her shoulder with a cry and held the red indentations to my lips.

  At that moment Sybil McLean appeared in the door I had left open to the hall. She stared at us for a moment and this time I stared back with equal hostility. She was a tall, full-bosomed woman in her dark red gown. At her throat the white ruching was immaculate. Tiny jade earrings made a surprisingly exotic touch at her ears. I was aware again of a subdued intensity, of a barely restrained malevolence toward myself.

  “So she’s bitten you, has she?” Mrs. McLean said. “I thought we had cured her of the habit. You’ve no business here, Laurel. Go to your room at once. Your father will hear of this and there will be no supper for you tonight.”

  The child threw us both a hateful glance, snatched up her pebbles and walked through the door into her own room without hurrying. Her grandmother changed the key from Laurel’s side of the door to mine. When she had locked it, she took out the key and placed it upon my dresser.

  “You’d better keep the door between you locked. There’s no telling what the child will do next.”

  With my new contrariness, I came perversely to Laurel’s defense. “It was my own fault,” I said. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

  Mrs. McLean regarded me in her autocratic manner, as though no remark of mine could carry weight or import. Her very bearing had the effect of making me feel young and awkward and ignorant.

  “The captain has asked me to say that he wishes you to have supper with him tonight,” she informed me.

  I responded with what little dignity I could summon. “I’ll be happy to do so. I’m glad to know he’s feeling better.”

  “I’m not sure he is, but he will listen to no advice. I can only hope that you will try not to disturb him. The Chinese woman will come for you when it is time.” Her underlining of the word “Chinese” gave evidence of her low regard for Lien.

  She swept about with a swish of her bustled skirt and left me alone. This time I closed the hall door and bolted it. I felt more relieved by the captain’s invitation than anything else. He was the one person in this house who appeared to have any liking for me. It would be far more comfortable to dine with him than to find myself at the table downstairs with Sybil McLean and her son.

  From Laurel’s room there came no sound, though I stood for a moment at her door, listening. In spite of my bitten hand, I felt sorry for the child. She gave evidence of knowing nothing of love or of any gentle treatment and I thought this quite likely, having met her father and grandmother. I wished I could dismiss her words about my being the daughter of a murderer as easily as I had dismissed other things she had said, but however foolish, they remained to haunt me. In a way I knew how she must feel—small and helpless, living in an atmosphere of disapproval and without affection. What else could one expect but a strik
ing back at those one fancied as enemies? Even I, who was older and should have known better, had reacted in the same way this afternoon. I had bitten no one, but I had slapped out with an ugly taunt that was unlike me. Worst of all, I could not regret it.

  I sat in the rocker once more and tried to soothe my ruffled feelings by moving gently back and forth. The dog was barking again from the rear of the house where his kennel must be. So he and his master must have returned home.

  What fitting companions they made—that dark-brown man and the black dog, Lucifer! Both oversized and bad-tempered. Both burning of eye and ready to attack. Both wholly male in a sense that I could only shudder from. My father, for all that he had been master of a ship at an early age and had subsequently lived a hard life at sea, had been a gentle man in his own home. With me he had been endlessly patient and loving and forgiving—even when I sometimes behaved as a spoiled child must, wanting my own way. Even Captain Obadiah, for all that he was a shadow of what he must have been, and could take cruel hold of my hand, attempting to bend me to his will—even he had a sweeter, more affectionate side. But there would never be anything of love in Brock McLean or that black dog of his. Unless it was for each other. It was fantastic of the captain to think he might force such a marriage upon me.

  In no more than fifteen minutes Lien came tapping on my door. If she was surprised that I had to unbolt it, she gave no sign.

  “You will come, please,” she said.

  I followed her exotic little figure toward the captain’s quarters and she said nothing at all on the way. I could not tell whether her silence indicated disapproval, or the shyness of a foreign woman.

  This time it was a pleasure to step into that warm, bright room with its scent of sandalwood. I saw that the captain had left his nest of quilts and stood beside an open window, looking out into the darkness while a cold, salty breeze blew in from outdoors. This was the first time I had seen him on his feet and I was surprised by the evidence of sturdiness he gave. His face and hands were wizened, but the strong bone structure of his body still lent him considerable height and breadth.